If you will, take your Bibles
now and turn back with me to Matthew chapter 16. I want to talk to you this morning
about a godly confession. There's all kinds of confession.
Men confess things every day. They confess things when they
don't know they're confessing. Yet they confess things. But
there's those in the Scripture that the Lord speaks of and preserved
in his writings, saying they confessed a good confession. We pick up our text in verse
12 of Matthew 16, with our Lord warning his disciples about the
doctrine of the Pharisees and Sadducees. What was the doctrine
of the Pharisees and Sadducees? It was the old, old doctrine
of works. That's what it was. It was the
doctrine of works religion. That is, by their obedience and
sacrifice, they could produce a righteousness acceptable to
God and therefore earn the right to enter into glory. Their doctrine
was the doctrine of legalism, salvation by their personal obedience,
to the holy law of God. They believed and they taught
that a man could keep the law and produce by that obedience
a righteousness acceptable to God. You can read about it in
Romans chapter 2. He tells the Jews that the same
thing that the Gentiles were guilty of, he said, you're guilty
of the same thing. He said, you tell people thou
shalt not kill. He said, do you give? You tell
folks not to commit adultery. Do you commit adultery? He said,
wherein you judge another, you judge your own selves. That's
what legalism is. And then their doctrine was the
doctrine of ceremonialism, the priesthood, the temple, the holy
days, the feast days, the Sabbaths under the law. All these ceremonies,
it's ceremonial religion. They believed and taught that
in the practice of these ceremonies, men and women could gain the
favor and blessing of God. That's what Sabbatarians believe
in our day, same thing. And then there was the doctrine
of the Sadducees who denied the resurrection. They didn't believe
in the hereafter. Can you imagine such a thing?
They didn't believe in heaven. They believed that the rewards
and punishment of God was manifested in your life in this world. That that's all there was. That's
all there was. And therefore, those who are
blessed of God, they had gained high recognition among men, they
gained riches, they gained health, they gained all these things.
That's what they called It's just exactly like the health
and wealth gospel that's being preached today. And generally speaking, that
was their doctrine, and the Lord warned His disciples to beware
of it. And Paul said the same thing
over in Colossians chapter 2. He said the same thing. He said,
Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit
after the tradition of men. after the rudiments of the world
and not after Christ. I think we overlook things sometimes
without thinking about them in the scriptures. But the Bible
is not a book that says everything but nothing in particular. And
that's what I'm told every time I try to tell some intellectual
something about the salvation of God in Christ. Well, that's
not what it means to me. Well, one of us is wrong. The
Bible doesn't say everything, it says something. And what it
says, this something, is particular. The Bible declares God's message
to fallen sinners, and it's a very particular message. Did you know
one of the qualifications for a minister, as Paul wrote to
Timothy, one of the qualifications of a minister is He said, is
to show himself approved of God. Now this man's going to show
to the people that he preaches to. He's going to show that God
has approved him. God has called him. How's he
going to do it? Rightly dividing the word of
truth. That's how it's done. There's
no other way to tell. You can't tell because he smiles
at you and pats your kids on the head. That's not what shows
him approved of God. God approves his messengers because
they preach the truth, the truth. And the truth set forth in the
word of God is called in the word of God doctrine. A preacher
I just don't want to hear a man preach doctrine. Well, then don't
expect to hear from God. Because that's how God speaks.
He speaks through doctrine. Listen to this. John said, Whosoever
transgresseth and abideth not in the doctrine of Christ hath
not God. That's pretty stern, isn't it? He hath not God. And if any come
unto you and bring not this doctrine, don't receive him into your house,
neither bid him Godspeed. And if you do, you're a partaker
of his false religion. All men have doctrine, but only
God's messengers have the doctrine of Christ. Everything else is
poison to your soul. That's why our Lord told them,
beware of the doctrine of the Pharisees and the Sadducees.
They're blind. They're blind leaders. He said,
leave them alone. Stay away from them. Avoid them.
They're blind leaders of the blind, and if the blind lead
the blind, they'll both fall in the ditch. All false doctrine is poison
to your soul. Somebody said, well, he just
preaches so much truth. Rat poison is 99% good food. It's the 1% that kills the rat. And false doctrines filled with
good stuff. Filled with good stuff. But it's
the 1% that poisons your soul. The Lord forbid His disciples
to hear it. And then in verse 13, a question
is asked. He said, whom do men say that
I, the Son of Man, am? You ever listen? Do you ever
listen to your friends when they start talking religion to you?
Do you ever listen to them? Whom do men say that I the Son
of Man am? Whom do men, whom do your friends
say that the Son of God is? Whom do they say He is? Just
listen to them talk. They will tell you. And His disciples begin to answer,
I suspect one and then another and then another. and had various
things to say, but here's what men say. They say that Jesus
of Nazareth was a great man, a great man, a man sent of God. Nicodemus said, we know that
thou art a man sent of God because nobody else could do what you
do except God was with you. He's a great man. He's a man
sent of God. Maybe John the Baptist. John
the Baptist was prophesied in the Old Testament. Isaiah talked
about his coming. He's a voice of one kind in the
wilderness. He prophesied about John the
Baptist coming. Maybe this Jesus is John the
Baptist. Maybe he's Elijah, Malachi, the
last book of the Bible. He spoke of Elijah coming. He's
going to come. But we're plainly told in the
scripture that was John the Baptist. He came in the spirit of Elijah.
And then the Jews suspected that he might be Jeremiah. Why in
the world would they think he was Jeremiah? Because of all
the similarities between Jeremiah and Moses. If you start looking
at it and look at their account of it, it's amazing how much
similarity Jeremiah had to Moses. And the Lord said, I'm going
to raise up a prophet in the last day, like unto my servant
Moses. So some of them said, well, he
might be Jeremiah. Certainly one of the old prophets. Jesus Christ was a great man,
and even his enemies recognized that. His understanding of the
Scripture left even the lawyers speechless. These, I'm going
to tell you something, a lawyer can tie you up in knots. And
these lawyers knew the scriptures inside out. They were professionals
in the law of God. And they come out to tempt him
and he left them speechless. Absolutely speechless. His knowledge
of the scriptures left their rabbis with nothing to say when
he was only 12 years old. His preaching came with such
authority that it left men spellbound. They said, never a man speak
like this man. Never. He speaks with authority. Even the devils obey his voice. And I could just give you a myriad
of ideas and concepts that I've heard over the years about who
men say that Jesus of Nazareth is. That's what he asked his
disciples. Are you listening? Do you know
what men are saying about me? Do you hear what the Sadducees
are saying about me? Do you hear what the Pharisees
are saying about me? Yes. Yes, we hear. And this is
what they say. And then a second question is
asked. Who do you say that I am? Huh? I want you to ask yourself
that question this morning. Who do I say that Jesus of Nazareth
is? Now, if I want to know where
you stand and know something of your state before God, this
is the question that needs to be asked. Paul said, I preach
the gospel to you here at Corinth. I came to you, and I preached
the gospel to you, and you received it, and wherein you stand." Do
I want to know where you stand? Then I would ask this question,
whom do you say that he is? Believers hear the gospel of
Christ, they receive the Christ of the gospel, and they stand
in Him, and walk in Him, and they die in Him. These all died
and passed. Well, the question is this, whom
do you that profess discipleship, that profess faith, say that
He is? Who is this man, Jesus of Nazareth? Let me give you four or five
things this morning concerning this confession of Peter. Peter
just spoke right up. You know, he had a lot of faults,
but I tell you, shyness wasn't one of them. Peter spoke right
up, and he spoke what God revealed to him in his heart. So here's the first thing. I
know this, that God the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Christ,
shall press this question hard upon the hearts and minds of
chosen sinners. For the first time in your life,
when God begins to deal with you, you're going to deal with
this thing of who is Jesus of Nazareth. He's not who you thought
He was. Not who you thought He was at
all. Whom do you say that I am? Peter said, Thou art the Christ.
Thou art the Christ. The sinner is brought to see,
to know, and to understand at least to some degree the person
and work of Jesus of Nazareth, that He is the Christ. We're
totally ignorant of those things. The Jews were raised in it from
the time they were babies. They were brought up talking
to them about the promises of Christ. The Christ is coming. The Messiah is coming. They had
hope in the Messiah. And they were taught that from
a child. They were taught the Holy Scriptures. Christ is the Promised One of
God sent forth in the Old Testament. He's sometimes called the Messiah.
Sometimes He's called the Righteous Branch. Sometimes he's called
the root of Jesse. Sometimes he's called the seed
of Abraham. On and on and on the name goes,
but all of these names were in common with the coming Redeemer,
the Christ of God. At the fall of our race, way
back yonder in the garden, before the birth of the first son of
Adam, God came to our condemned parents and gave them the first
gospel promise. concerning the coming Redeemer.
And he called Him the woman seed. The woman seed. He said, Satan's
going to bruise his heel, but the woman seed is going to bruise
his head. He's going to crush the head
of Satan. And he said he'd put enmity between the serpent and
the woman, and between the serpent's seed and the seed of the woman. It speaks of the virgin-born
Son of God, the promised Messiah, and He's the seed of Abraham.
You go on a little bit in Genesis, and you find out here's the seed
of Abraham. Now, to Abraham and his seed,
Paul said, were the promises given. He saith not unto seeds
as of many, but unto thy seed, which is Christ's. And then in
Acts 30, Peter said, David being a prophet, knowing that God had
sworn to him with an oath that of the fruit of his loins, according
to the flesh, he'd raise up Christ to sit on his throne. He showed
that to David. And David spoke of his resurrection,
saying, his soul was not left in hell, neither his flesh did
see corruption. The Christ of God is prophesied
all through the Old Testament scriptures, and he's typified.
in their ceremonial religion. He's typified through the sacrifices,
through the priesthood, through the temple and the tabernacle,
and through all of those things, through those holy days, and
feast days, and the Sabbath days. He's typified all through there. Isaiah said, unto us a child
is born. Unto us a son is given. And that's exactly what happened.
Mary had a child. but the Son of God was given. And he said the government shall
be upon his shoulder and his name shall be called Wonderful
Counselor. Now listen, the mighty God. What about this Christ? He's
God. He's God. He's the everlasting
Father. He's the Prince of Peace. And
his death is described in great detail in Isaiah 53, that Christ
is the name of him who was to come and save his people from
their sins. And Isaiah, with great detail,
tells us about his death. And faith understands that Jesus
is the Christ. That's what it understands. It
understands who the Christ is, and it understands that Jesus
of Nazareth is the Christ. Second. It is this knowledge
in particular which gave evidence of Peter's election of God. Whom do you say that I, the son
of man, am? Peter said, thou art the Christ.
He said, blessed art thou. What did I tell you a while ago?
Blessings are not something born in time. Blessings are those
which are promised in Christ before the foundation of the
world. Blessed art thou, Simon Bartholomew. Blessed. Now, I'm going to tell you something.
If you're blessed of God, you're His elect. He doesn't bless anybody
else. He doesn't bless anybody else.
He blesses His chosen. That man who will hear the Son,
he's going to have everlasting life. That man who won't hear
the Son, What's it say about him? He shall not see life, but
the wrath of God abideth on him. He's not blessed. I don't care
what he owns, what he has, who he is. Men don't believe and then they're
blessed. They're blessed. They're being made meat to inherit
that blessing of faith. Listen to how Paul states this
thing of faith. He said, God hath abounded toward
us in all wisdom and knowledge. Who did? God did. Having made known unto us the
mystery of His will according to His good pleasure which He
purposed in Himself. God chose us from the beginning
to salvation through sanctification of spirit and belief of the truth.
And then He called us by His gospel to the obtaining of the
glory of the Lord Jesus Christ. Every means ordained of God in
the salvation of sinners culminates in bringing the sinner to Christ.
Bringing him to know who He is. To see His glory. To see God
in him. He's the Christ. All His blessings. Any blessing that doesn't culminate
in that is not a blessing. People are not saved. never aware
of it. They're not saved and then left
in a state of delusion and deceit. They're not given an interest
in the Redeemer, then left to live out their days in the vanity
of their minds. They're given a knowledge of
the Lord Jesus Christ. And all those chosen of God in
Christ shall be brought to a saving knowledge of Christ and confess
that faith before men. That's where Peter was at. And
that's why he was blessed. While preaching might be a random
practice by myself and others, I assure you it's not so with
God. He knows exactly where he sends me and exactly to whom
he's speaking. Yes, he does. How shall you hear without a
preacher, and how shall he preach except he be sent? And God's
preachers preach Christ and Him crucified. They point men to
Christ. They call men to faith in Christ.
And this is what our Lord... Did you know Christ preached
Christ? He's your dad. He preached Christ. And all those
represented in Him preached Christ. And the knowledge given to chosen
sinners through the preaching of the gospel when it is embraced
from the heart is the one true evidence of our election of God. Therefore, our Lord looked at
Peter, heard his confession, and said, blessed art thou. Thirdly,
a true knowledge of the person and work of Jesus Christ is the
divine work of the Holy Ghost. Our Lord looked at Peter and
He said, flesh and blood didn't reveal that to you. He was flesh and blood, wasn't
He? The Lord stood before Him a man. He was flesh and blood.
And Peter didn't have any information that he didn't receive from Him,
but he said, flesh and blood didn't reveal that to you. But
my Father, which is in Heaven, Our Lord had on many occasions
plainly declared that He was the Christ, the Son of the living
God. Declared to them His manner of birth, place of birth, time
of birth, His relationship of birth. He was of the tribe of
Judah. That was important. His baptism. And the witness
both of God's prophet and of the Father's own declaration
declare Him plainly to be the Christ. And the works He did
were a plain declaration of His office as the Christ. You remember
John's disciples came out and they said, John's in prison and
he can't get around and he sent us over here to you and we got
a question. Are you the Christ or do we look
for another? He said, you go tell John what
you saw and what you heard. That'll satisfy him. You just
go tell him what you saw and what you heard. The dead were
raised. The blind received their sight. The lame walked. You go
tell John that. Our Lord taught them that He
came into this world to save sinners, that He Himself was
their righteousness, and that his death would be necessary
to satisfy God's justice and put away sin. Yet none of these
things were understood or taken to heart until there was an inward
working of the grace of God. And all of these things can be
sold toward the sinner, but they absolutely mean nothing to him
until God opens his heart to see him, and to hear him, and
to embrace him. So it is with the gospel. The
gospel is the revelation of the glory of God in the face of Jesus
Christ. It declares Him to be the eternal
Son of God and the Son of Man. It declares His coming into this
world in flesh and in union with His people and accomplishing
their redemption. The gospel declares God's satisfaction
with His Son and therefore with all that are in His Son. The
gospel declares his resurrection and by the justification of all
his saints, delivered for us, for our sins, raised again for
our justification. The gospel declares his triumphant
ascension into glory and his seat as their mediatory king.
at the right hand of the father. The gospel declares his intercession
in glory as our great high priest pleading his own righteousness
and atoning blood and even the very purpose of God in their
salvation. And the gospel declares the second
coming of Christ to gather his own to himself and to carry out
his judgment of this present evil world. The inward working
of the Holy Spirit does not give to men another revelation other
than the gospel. I wish I could get this across
to you as plain as it is to me. People say, well, I'm going to
wait on the revelation. It is the revelation of God.
I'm giving to you this morning the revelation of God. What the
Holy Spirit does is make you to understand that it's yours. It's yours. That the Christ I'm
preaching, this is salvation. And you embrace Him. That's not
another revelation. I'm not going to preach to you
this morning and you're going to go home and say, well, I was in my closet.
Boy, God gave me a revelation. No, He didn't. If you got one,
you got it right here. Right here. The gospel is the
revelation of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.
We have this treasure, Paul said. He shined in our hearts to give
us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face
of Jesus Christ. And we have this treasure in
earthen vessels. And we preach it to you that
the excellency, the power of your conversion might be of God,
not of us. But that revelation is the gospel.
It's the gospel of Jesus Christ. When the Spirit of God has come,
our Lord said He'll reprove the world of sin, righteousness,
and judgment. And if you try to use the common
definition of reprove, it means to charge or to blame. And while
that might fit what he has to say about sin, it don't fit what
he has to say about righteousness and satisfied judgment. So that
that word reprove means convict or convince, convince. When He has come, He'll convince
the world of sin, convince them of the righteousness of God in
Christ. And I'll tell you this, if He ever convicts you of sin,
He'll have to convince you of righteousness, because you won't
even have an inkling of any hope of righteousness. Flesh and blood cannot reveal
these things, but Christ said, My Father which is in heaven.
Speaking specifically of the work of the Holy Ghost. Listen to this, John 16, 15. All things that the Father hath
are mine. His redemptive purpose. His ordained means, His designated
authority, the glory of His character, they all belong to Christ. All
His elect, all things that the Father hath are mine. Therefore, He said, I said unto
you, the Spirit shall take of mine and show them unto you. There's a passage quoted back
in John chapter 6 from Isaiah 54. In Isaiah 54, verse 13, the
passage reads, All thy children shall be taught of the Lord.
All thy children. In John 6, verse 45, it reads,
They shall all be taught of God. Every man, therefore, that hath
heard and hath learned of the Father cometh unto me. Now, it's
not that God the Father comes personally and teaches you. But
He teaches you through the means that He's ordained. That's what
He's talking about when He said, the Father is going to teach
you. Our Lord said, if I don't go
into heaven, the Father won't send you the Spirit. The sending of the Spirit is
of the Father. You see what He's saying here?
The Father's not going to come teach you, but the Father has
ordained the means by which you shall be taught. And so he says, it pleased God
by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe. God
the Father pleased him to do it that way. The gospel of Christ,
Paul said, is the power of God unto salvation. God's ordained
this thing. And listen to this, bear in. is the righteousness of God revealed
from faith to faith. The gospel is the revelation.
The Spirit just opens your eyes to see it. To see it. I remember Brother David Brayton,
he's sitting here this morning. I remember him coming for the
first time down at the old church. Grabbed that cell phone, hit
it, and called his mother, and he said, they're preaching the
gospel over here. This is where I'm going to church.
You remember that? They're preaching the gospel
here. They're preaching the gospel.
He heard it. He heard it. Some of you have heard it. Peter's confession that Jesus
was the Christ was not something new or different from what Christ
was declaring, but it was a confirmation that God had revealed it to his
heart. Christ had been telling him that
all along. But God opened his heart to see it. He said, Thou
art the Christ. Thou art the Christ. And then lastly, This is the
foundation upon which Christ's church is going to be built.
The Catholics say that foundation is Peter, that our Lord talking
about building his church on Peter. No, I don't think so.
I don't think so. I don't think you can find that
anywhere in the Word of God. They've insisted on it for hundreds
of years, that Peter's the rock to which Christ is referring,
and that in each generation, there's going to be a successor,
which they call the Pope. This does not fit God's design,
nor the plain teaching of the apostles themselves, nor the
prophecies of the types of the Old Testament. Jesus Christ himself
is the one sure and solid foundation. You don't have to go very far
back into Matthew. I think it's Matthew 7 or somewhere
along in there. He talks about the building of
the house on sand. The unwise man, he took his faith
and he built his hopes on shifting sand, and the waters came up
and the rains came down and washed it away. He said the wise man
built his house on a rock. He built that faith, that foundation
was Christ. And everything he built on that
is just as solid as the day he built it. It doesn't move. You
know, I attached this thing we're building here in the front to
the building, The part of the building I attached it to moves.
And when I take the braces off, the whole thing moves. So I got
to go out there and sink down some poles and fortify that thing
to where it doesn't move. We build our house on anything,
but Christ, it's going to move and shift and be blown about
by every wind of doctrine. But you build your house on Christ,
it's solid. It's solid. And the storms can
come and the winds and the waters, but it's going to stay. Listen to what, here's Peter,
this is the man who made this profession. Now listen to him
after the Holy Spirit was poured out on him and he had full understanding. Listen to what he tells him.
He said, this is the stone, B stone, which was said it not of your
builders, which God made the head of the corner. Neither is
there salvation in any other, for there is none other name
under heaven given among men whereby we must be saved." Jesus
Christ. And again it says, "...to him
give all the prophets witness that through his name whosoever
believeth in him shall receive remission of sins." And Paul
warns Timothy of false prophets which will attend every man's
ministry in this world, and he said, their words will eat like
a cancer and cause men to err in the faith. What will their
words do? They'll take you away from Christ. And they'll point you to yourself,
and point you to your will, and point you to your love, and point
you to this, that, and the other thing. Nevertheless, he said, the foundation
of God standeth sure. That great rock upon which he's
going to build his church, it stands sure. And it has this
seal. The Lord knows them that are
His. He knows those given to Him in
eternal election, those beloved of the Father and trusted into
His care, those whom He willingly entered into covenant union with.
Those for whom He became surety and federal head, those He came
and lived and died for, rose to justify, ascended into glory
to intercede for, the Lord knoweth them that are His. I don't know them until they're
manifest by repentance and faith. And even then, I'm not always
sure. But the Lord knows His people.
And they shall, every one, by the hearing of the gospel and
the powerful inward working of the Holy Ghost, confess Christ
to be the Son of the living God. Whom do you say that He is? Huh? You're resting all your hope
on Him. That's where salvation's at.
Who you're resting the hope on? Huh? Isn't that what our Lord's
asking them? Whom do you say that I am?